I've been using NI for a while now, though I've never really delved far into it. As a result in the past I used custom profiles made by others or more recently, I've been using auto generated profiles (most often using an area I pick in the photo) each time I get a new photo. Because most of my photos tend to get shown on the web this has been fairly ok for me since after resizing down for web display, a lot of noise is naturally lost anyway in the transition.
However I'm keen to advance my use of the tool and get better performance out of it.
I've had a read of the profile instructions and I think I've got the idea right, though I want to double check in case I've misunderstood something or missed something out. My plan currently is to
1) Open up the Calibration target in NI on my LCD.
2) Take photos of the screen at different ISO values. As I shoot in RAW it would seem that the only setting I need to worry about is the ISO, since most of the other listed factors that affect the noise are mostly JPEG related. Of course the photos should be slightly blurry in nature.
3) It's not mentioned in the list, but I wonder if for each ISO value if it would be worth taking photos which are not just correctly exposed, but also under exposed and then brightened in editing (to a general default value to represent the same being done to a regular photo). Staggering them to perhaps one and two stops underexposed.
I'm not sure if this is worth doing or if the actual noise patterns remain the same and the under exposure and brightening is just highlighting them more apparently to the viewer.
4) My camera can take photos in 1/3 stop values for ISO and I typically have it set up to use those 1/3rd values. Is it worth creating a fresh profile for each specific ISO value or can you double up and use the nearest ISO value (up or down?) and work with just full stop values of ISO?
5) When in the tool itself do I only need to use the "produce profile with calibration image" tool? Do I need to use any of the fine-tuning command options to further refine the result or is that simply introducing data that will degrade the overall profile
Note I'm aware that shutterspeeds are listed as a potentially contributing factor, however I'm guessing that provided I've decent lighting, I shouldn't need to concern myself with them unless I were having exposures running beyond 30seconds.
Are there any other tips or advice that would be worth taking into account when producing a selection of profiles that I've not noted above? I would be most grateful for any advice/tips regarding this matter.
Top
